Thematic Platforms

Addex Appoints Jean-Philippe Rocher as Co-Head of Discovery and Member of the Executive Management

SBA Member, 07.02.2018

Geneva, Switzerland, 7 February 2018 - Addex Therapeutics (SIX: ADXN), a leading company pioneering allosteric modulation-based drug discovery and development, announced today the appointment of Jean-Philippe Rocher, PhD, as Co-Head of Discovery and Member of the Executive Management, effective 1 June 2018. Dr. Rocher is a medicinal chemistry and drug discovery expert with more than 25 years industry experience, who previously built Addex' small molecule allosteric modulator chemistry platform. Together with Robert Lütjens, Addex's current Head of Discovery, he will oversee the preclinical portfolio of proprietary allosteric modulator programs and lead the chemistry components of our funded research programs on GABAB PAM with Indivior PLC and TrkB PAM with the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research.

"Putting back together the successful chemistry and biology partnership of Jean-Philippe Rocher and Robert Lütjens, which built the Addex allosteric modulator discovery platform and delivered our proprietary pipeline is a significant achievement," commented Tim Dyer, CEO of Addex. "The team will initially focus on delivering on our funded research programs which are being conducted in collaboration with Indivior PLC and The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research."

"I'm delighted to rejoin Addex and have the opportunity to continue the work that Robert Lütjens and I started in 2002", added Jean-Philippe Rocher. "Allosteric modulation is an exciting field which holds huge potential to transform the treatment of CNS disorders. I am looking forward to deploying my expertise and experience back at Addex."

Dr. Rocher returns to Addex from his current position as CNS Program Director at Pierre Fabre. Joining Addex at its inception in 2002, Dr. Rocher established the company's chemistry capabilities and helped build its small molecule allosteric modulator chemistry platform and pipeline. He played a pivotal role in the success of both internal and partnered programs, including the discovery of dipraglurant and ADX71149, both of which progressed into phase II clinical development. Under the leadership of Dr Rocher, Addex team discovered ADX71441, which was recently licensed to Indivior PLC. Prior to joining Addex, Dr. Rocher was director of chemistry at Devgen NV (Gent, Belgium), senior research scientist for GlaxoSmithKline KK (Tsukuba, Japan), scientific project leader in CNS at Mitsubishi Tanabe (Yokohama, Japan) and Head of Drug Discovery Unit for Battelle (Geneva, Switzerland). He started his career as a research scientist in the dermatology research centre of Galderma (Sophia-Antipolis, France) following a PhD in medicinal chemistry and Pharm D at the Faculty of Pharmacy of Lyon (France). He is a co-author of more than 35 research publications and patents.